Ideas for your Family Portrait Shoot

When striving to create a successful family portrait, the efforts to achieve harmony in clothing will pay the biggest dividends in the quality of your finished portraits. "Trendy" clothing will date a portrait and make it something you won't enjoy even after only a few years. Large patterns, prints or graphics on clothing will draw more attention to the clothes than to you, the subject. My most important recommendation is to wear solid colored, non-trendy clothing. Small patterns of muted or harmonious colors are okay. Keep the tonal range (lightness or darkness) consistent throughout the group. Choose either medium to light tones, or medium to dark tones for all the people in the group. If you have 9 people wearing dark colors and one person dresses in white, guess where the eye will go. It's also important to try to achieve color harmony in the portrait. The same rule applies to choice of colors -if everyone is in cool colors and one person is in red, they get all the visual attention. The best choices for colors are neutral to cool colors (blues, grays, greens, browns, earthy colors, etc.) and to try to avoid "hot" colors such as reds oranges, yellows, mustards, etc. Please understand that these are just guidelines - an entire family dressed in red could look very good. Please feel free to discuss your clothing ideas with me.Clothing style should also been considered. A group dressed in formal clothes with one person in blue jeans may not be as successful. Eyeglasses can cause reflections that obscure the eyes, so the best thing to do is borrow a pair of empty frames from your optometrist. Most optical stores are willing to loan you an empty pair for a portrait session if you leave a security deposit.So, in summary...

Avoid "trendy" clothing

No loud patterns, prints or graphics - solid colors are best

Everyone in similar tones - medium to light OR medium to dark

Everyone in similar color tones - neutral to cool colors are best

Consistency in style - casual, semi-formal, formal, etc.

Eyeglasses - frames with no lenses if possible

Good luck with your clothing selections, and thank you for making the effort to help me make your portrait a success. I look forward to creating beautiful images for you.

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